What My Fathers Taught Me
by SemperFi-NavyNCIS
Summary: A series of short one shots inspired by Ziva's last line in the season 8 episode; "Dead Air." Minor spoilers for this and possibly a few other episodes from season 3 onwards.
1. Independence

**This is a series of short one shots inspired by Ziva's line in Dead Air, "My father taught me." In my mind, this did not seem the kind of thing that Eli would have taught her, so this came from my idea of what he would have, and later, what her second "father" Gibbs, taught her. **

**DISCLAIMER: I'm only going to say this once, I DO NOT OWN NCIS! There, now that's out of the way, enjoy the story.**

INDEPENDENCE

Ziva David was four years old when she learnt independence. She had been climbing trees with Ari in the garden, he might have been seven years her senior but her strong will and determination made her strive to be just as good as her brother at everything they did.

It was this fierce determination, she mused, many years later, that allowed her father to take such advantage of her.

On this particular hot Tel-Aviv day though, she had fallen from the tree that she was climbing. Though she had not fallen far, it had hurt and she ran into the kitchen, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Aba! Aba! It hurts!" She wailed, as only a young child can.

Her mother stood from the table, her maternal instinct to comfort her child strong, but her husband placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

Reluctantly she sat and watched, her heart breaking, as Ziva screamed and cried, tugging desperately at his leg as he ignored her.

"Aba! Aba! Please!"

The little girl had no idea how long it took for her to realise that she would get no comfort from either of her parents but when she did she ran, still sobbing, to her room, and cried into her last source of comfort, her stuffed toy dog, Bertie.

Bertie had disappeared just two weeks later but it had taken her a few months to realise that her father had taken him.

As lessons went it was effective, as after that day Ziva never tried to obtain comfort.

When she started school her teachers said she was tough and brave as, no matter how many times she fell in the playground, she never once shed a tear. She nodded and agreed, but it was years before she stopped wishing that they wouldn't call her brave, that they would've seen that, strong as she may have seemed, inside she was breaking.

**As always, please review and any suggestions of lessons from either Gibbs or Eli will be much appreciated. Thank you!**


	2. Shooting

**I apologise for the shortness of these one shots but I just can't seem to come up with anything any longer. I hope you enjoy this anyway.**

SHOOTING

Eli David gave his daughter a gun for her tenth birthday and she smiled. She did not smile in eagerness to use it, though she had more idea than most ten year olds of what someone with a gun was capable of, she had maintained just enough of her childish naivety that she did not realise the implications of such a present, though this innocence would not last long.

She smiled simply because she knew that, if her father had given her a gun, he would have to teach her how to use it and that would mean spending time with him.

Eli had not been a constant figure in her life, so often away and, even when he was at home, so prone to ignoring her, so she craved his attention and, even more so, his approval. An older, and infinitely wiser, Ziva often wondered whether it was this desperation for approval that led to her becoming what she was, or at least had been. And whether, if she had listened all those times that Ari tried to warn her about their father, she could have saved them both.

But what ifs were pointless because the fact of the matter remained that Ziva had adored her father and so it was with great excitement that she joined him on the shooting range at the Mossad training camp the day after her birthday.

Eli held the gun carefully to show her what to do then handed it over. She mimicked her father's stance perfectly and he smiled in approval. He placed his large, calloused hands over his daughter's small, smooth ones and together they pulled the trigger.

That first crack made Ziva jump; she had not expected it to be quite so loud and, without thinking, she turned her face into her father's chest. He pushed her away harshly.

"A gun shot is not a noise to invoke fear," he snapped at her. "As long as it comes from your gun, it is the noise of victory."

In the dark dreams that still haunted her on some cold and silent nights, Ziva could still hear that first crack of the gun, still feel the fear she'd felt at the noise, still hear her father's words as he admonished her.

For all the sharpness of that memory what she remembered of the rest of that day was hazy and less clear.

All she knew was that, three years later, she had woken in the night hearing a strange noise. She had shot the intruder three times in the chest, a perfect grouping of kill shots, and this time, in every crack of her gun she had heard, victory.

**Again, please review, constructive criticism is much appreciated! **


	3. Ruthlessness

**Just to clarify, the opinions expressed by Eli in this chapter in NO WAY reflect my own. In my opinion, I think both the Israeli's and Palestinians should just stop killing each other, but I somehow think that Eli David would not share this sentiment. But in any case, no offence is meant to anyone, Israeli, Palestinian or otherwise.**

RUTHLESSNESS

"Your father's here Miss. David."

Most sixteen year old girls who were sat in a hospital bed with sixteen stitches in their face and four feet of bandages wrapping their arms and legs would rejoice to hear those words, but Ziva was not most sixteen year old girls and she knew that her father was not here to offer get well wishes.

In fact, she considered herself lucky that he waited for the nurses to leave the room before he began to yell at her.

"What were you thinking? You had a clear shot at him! Why did you not take it?"

"Aba he. . ."

"That man has killed twenty-four Mossad operatives! And you let him get away! What were you thinking?"

"Aba I couldn't shoot him!"

At these words he took her none too gently by the neck of her hospital gown and pulled her so close to him that their noses were almost touching and she could feel his breath on her cheeks.

"You'd better have a damn good reason!"

"Aba, he had his son with him! His four-year-old son! He was holding him! How could I shoot him when he was holding his son?"

Eli was so enraged by this that this time he yanked his daughter completely from the bed. She felt dizzy and could barely stand but her father dragged her across the room and stood her in front of the mirror.

He tapped the gold star that rested against the base of his daughter's throat.

"What is that Ziva?" He hissed into her ear.

"It's the. . . the Star of David." She answered through gasping breaths.

"And what is it the symbol of?"

"Judaism," she answered, wondering where this was going.

"Exactly, you are Jewish, and you are Israeli. We are the strong ones. Tell me Ziva, do you look strong?"

She looked in the mirror. Her face was covered in ugly black stitches and her dark curls were stuck to her forehead by sweat. She looked anything but strong and, reluctantly, she shook her head.

"That boy is the son of a Gazan terrorist and he will grow up to be a Gazan terrorist. This is war Ziva and you cannot afford to be selective. If they're Palestinian, you shoot them, no matter how old they are. You do not win a war with compassion, you win it with ruthlessness. Do you understand?"

She didn't answer straight away, remembering the cries of the young boy, unsure if she would ever be able to hurt such a small child.

Her father span her around, "Do you understand me Ziva?" He yelled and she nodded quickly.

"Yes sir."

"Good," was his only response, as he released her and began to walk away, not turning back, even as the sudden loss of support caused her to stumble backwards and fall, only just managing to grab the back of a chair to pull herself up, as in Eli's mind, this was another lesson. There was no support for her and she had learn to catch herself.

**Please review!**


	4. Strength and Tears 1

STRENGTH AND TEARS (1)

As the small white coffin was lowered into the ground Ziva felt warm, salty tears running down her cheeks for the first time in . . . she couldn't even remember the last time she cried.

Ari came and stood beside her; his own eyes, slightly red, but dry. He kissed the top of her head gently and pushed a tissue into her hand.

"Don't let Aba see you cry," he whispered.

Ziva looked up at him, "Why?"

Ari laughed once without humour, "Your naivety, Ziva, after everything you've been through, is both endearing and alarming."

He offered no further explanation, just kissed her again, and walked away.

She watched him go, confused. Sure, she knew as well as he did how their father felt about tears, but this was not a grazed knee or a missing toy. This was Tali, her baby sister. Today was different. It had to be.

She was, however, as she had been so many times before and even more times since, wrong about her father. Barely ten minutes later he took her by the hand and led her away from the funeral to a quiet area of the graveyard.

"Why are you crying?"

She stared at him in shock, "Aba . . . Tali . . . my little sister . . . your daughter."

The tears began to flow faster but, far from offering sympathy, Eli glared at her disgusted.

"In this world Ziva, only the strong survive. You, my child, are strong, but you must not cry, for when you cry you exhibit weakness and weakness is what will send you to an early grave. You are one of the strong, Ziva, and the strong do not have time to mourn the weak."

She nodded and dried her eyes. He smiled approvingly, and they walked back to the funeral.

Years later, she cursed her father for telling her these things, and her younger self even more so for believing them and for taking so long to realise that, whilst Tali was hopless with a gun or a knife, she was stronger than either of her older siblings, as she was the most kind, the most compassionate and the only one who ever refused to be their father's pawn.

**Please review, thank you!**


	5. Strength and Tears 2

STRENGTH AND TEARS (2)

When he heard her footsteps on the stairs he was surprised only that it had taken her this long to come to him. When she reached the bottom she stopped awkwardly, unsure of what to do from here, part of her desperate to run back the way she came and another part longing to stay. Eventually, Gibbs made the decision for her as he held out a sanding block to her still not turning from his boat. He knew that if he tried to initiate the conversation, she would go on the defensive as she had been doing to Tony and McGee and Abby and Ducky for the past few weeks. For this evening to have any effect, she would have to make the first move.

They sanded together in silence for a few moments before Gibbs placed down his sanding block and moved over to Ziva.

"With the grain," he instructed, placing his hands over hers and correcting her motions.

He left his hands where they were even when she was sanding perfectly as though, by holding her hands he could somehow hold her together and fix everything that Saleem had broken.

He was startled to suddenly feel something falling against his arms and even more so when he realised it was tears. In all the years that he had known Ziva he had seen her cry only once and it was quite disconcerting to see her tears falling against him.

He took her shoulders and tried to turn her around but she resisted hard, shaking her head "No, stop it. Stop it," she said through the sobs that were being to shake her shoulders despite her obvious attempts to control them.

He stopped and turned his intentions instead to trying to prise her fingers from the sanding block but she was gripping it like one would a life raft.

"Come on Ziva, just let it go," he coaxed.

At last he managed to lift the last of her fingers from the block but was entirely unprepared for her reaction.

As soon as he had taking the block from her hands her sobs intensified, causing her entire body to shake and her breaths to come in gasps. This time, when he turned her around she didn't have the strength to fight him but began to mumble in a language he didn't understand.

"Lo od! Lo od! Dai! Dai!"

"Ziva? Ziva? Come on, it's okay."

She simply began to shake harder and the words flowing from her mouth began to get louder and louder till she was practically screaming at him. He couldn't understand a word she was saying, though he was pretty sure it was more than one language, but there was no mistaking her tone. She was pleading, begging, and there was one word that she kept repeating, over and over.

"Lo!"

It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant.

He pulled her tightly against his chest rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly as her protests quieted again and she clutched tightly at his shirt. In time, she cried herself out and lay against his shoulder as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You going to talk about it?"

"No."

He sighed at her stubbornness. "Come on Ziver. You can't cry like that then not tell me what's wrong."

Without warning she ripped away from him.

"You know damn well what's wrong," she snapped "and I was _not _crying!"

He raised his eyebrows looking at her red eyes and the tear tracks down her cheeks and she scowled at him.

"I don't cry," she insisted. "I don't cry, I don't cry, I don't!"

She looked very close to tears again now and he sighed. "Everybody cries Ziva."

"I don't," she insisted again. "I'm a David, and an Israeli. We are the strong ones and we _don't _cry."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes, not at her but at the realisation that these were Eli David's words and not hers. Not for the first time he found himself cursing Eli for just how badly he had screwed up his daughter.

"Those that cry are weak," Ziva continued. "And weakness sends you to an early grave."

"Do you think Abby is weak Ziva? Or McGee? Or Tony? Or me?" Gibbs asked softly.

"No," she replied, not even having to think about it.

"Do you think we ever cry?"

"Well," this question needed more thought. "Abby does sometimes but not McGee, or Tony and defiantly not you."

Gibbs stepped closer to her cautiously, "You do not know me very well if you think I never cry. I cried when my mom died. I cried when Shannon and Kelly were killed."

She snapped her head up, surprised to hear him talk about his wife and daughter, which was a subject he generally avoided like the plague.

"I cried when I thought Tony would die. I cried when Kate was shot."

"Yes," Ziva interrupted. "But that's all when people died or you thought they were going to die. No one has died now so I have no excuse."

"I cried when Vance split the team up. I cried when I saw you so badly injured after the bomb blast in Morocco. I cried when we got you back here and I knew you were safe. Everybody cries Ziva, and tears do not make you weak, they make you human."

Ziva sat down heavily on Gibbs' workbench. "Eli never let me cry," she told him, her voice little more than a whisper. "Not even when I was small. He told me crying was a weakness and that I was not weak. Even when my . . . when my . . ."

She couldn't finish the sentence, just buried her head in her hands again as more tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Gibbs sat next to and put an arm around her shoulders. He did not pressure her for information; he knew that she would talk when she was ready.

"I cried at Tali's funeral and Eli told me that I did not have time to mourn the weak. My baby sister was dead and the only person who let me cry about it was Ari. He was the only one I could ever cry in front of. And then . . . and then I killed him! I killed him Gibbs! And now I know what Eli is capable of doing to me . . ."

She looked up at him, her dark eyes holding pain and fear. "I have no one Gibbs. Everyone I cared about, and who I thought cared about me, is gone and I am all alone. I have no one."

"That's not true," Gibbs told her, wrapping his other arm around her and holding her to him as she cried. "You have Abby, Tony, Tim, Ducky, even Jimmy who are all your friends and who care about you. And Ziva?"

She tilted her head up again to meet his eyes.

"You have me, Ziver. And if one good thing has come of all this mess, it is that maybe now you realise what Eli is like and what he has done to you, you will start to discredit all the bullshit he fed you and listen to those that really care. Because there is nothing wrong with tears Ziva, and you never need to be afraid to cry in front of me."

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review!**


	6. Americanisms

AMERICANISMS

**Sorry about the long wait for this update, but life kind of took over. This chapter is a lot less heavy than the previous ones.**

Ziva smacked a book against her desk and swore in Hebrew. Gibbs raised his eyebrows and looked up.

"Tony and McGee tell me that is not a good way to fix things."

She glared at him.

"What's wrong?"

She held up the book. "I am studying for my citizenship test. It is not going well. I mean, English is hard enough at the best of times but really, ' After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.' I do not understand."

"What do you not understand?"

"Would you like a list?"

He chuckled. "What parts?"

"Thereof," she replied after a moments hesitation. "What does 'the importation thereof' mean?"

"Of the thing previously mentioned, in this case the liquor," he explained, moving over to her desk to read over her shoulder.

"And that one," she asked pointing. "Rati...rata..."

"Ratification. It is the act of ratifying."

She glared up at him, "I do not know what 'ratifying' means either."

"To confirm by expressing consent, approval or formal sanction."

"Someones eaten the dictionay," she muttered.

"Swallowed," he corrected.

Ziva groaned and put her head in her hands. "You see! I cannot even get a simple expression correct!"

"Ziver, you speak nine languages. I think you can be forgiven for getting confused occasionally."

"But I am not becoming a citizen of Turkey or Russia or Spain Gibbs! I am becoming a citizen of America and I really want to be a citizen of America but I am going to fail this exam. I will never remember what all of this means!" She exclaimed, looking close to tears, and buried her head back in her palms.

"Ziva, what's the American idiom for something being hard to find?" 

"Like looking for a needle in a haystack," she mumbled.

"Exactly, you got that wrong for months after you came here but now you have it right without thinking. And when you first came here you were an assasin with no idea of how to solve crimes and now you're a brilliant investigator."

"So?"

"So, that shows that you are intelligent Ziver, and you can learn anything you want if you set your mind to it. And really, if you can store the vocabulary and grammatical rules of nine languages in that brain of yours, you should have no problem storing a few details of the American constitusion in there."

"Do you really think so?"

"I really know so," he replied. "Like I said, you're a very clever girl."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she smiled.

"But Ziver?"

"Yes?"

"If you ever do need any help, just ask."

She nodded and he went back to his desk with a smile on his face. It was quiet in the bullpen for a few minutes until Ziva looked up.

"Gibbs, what does levying mean?"

He studied her for a moment as she looked at him expectantly before he stood up grabbing his coat.

"Come on."

Ziva grabbed her things and hurried after him.

"But where are we going?"

Gibbs hit the down button on the elevator and smiled slightly.

"To buy you a dictionary."


End file.
